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Let’s imagine you have just gone through a great recruitment process and selected someone who scored highly in all your assessment methods. This brand new employee is starting next Monday. How do you ensure you keep up the good work done at recruitment?

‘So, what are your strengths and weaknesses?’ Whenever we help managers draft interview questions, this one pops up more often than we would like to see. Whilst its popularity (or infamy) has stood the test of time, the question is unfocused, generic… and won’t help you to select the right candidate. It’s about as useful as a an ashtray on a motorbike.

When someone leaves a post or a new post is created, the automatic reaction is usually to go to market to find someone who is already doing that same job elsewhere. This is often a good plan for the most senior roles where great people do move from organisation to organisation or even across sector to get exposure to more challenges or to increase their salaries. It’s not such a good idea when you are looking to recruit staff or junior and middle management posts.

We at Real People love core competencies. Competencies describe the effective behaviours that staff at different levels need to demonstrate to be great at their jobs, get on well with people, and live the desired culture and values of your organisation.

“Never, ever, again.” We’ve heard those words way too often. It’s unfortunate that for the modern manager, it is more likely than not that you will have gone through some tough employment relations cases in your career. The type of experience that can leave a rather nasty taste in the mouth, and one that you will never want to repeat. And one thing we’ll often ask, after the dust has settled, is when the tipping point was. Specifically, what was the point at which you noticed that there were going to be issues?

We often get asked how you can boost employee engagement. In our experience it’s got very little to do with engagement strategies and initiatives. It’s about making sure you have a well-managed organisation where people management is treated as seriously as product development and financial management.